Mobile Technology and Future of Travel3 min read

Peter Roesler is the president of Web Marketing Pros and has an extensive background in marketing online, such as social media, paid search, content marketing, and SEO. Full bio.

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Research suggests mobiles and millennials are changing the way we travel

For many hotel and attraction owners, capitalizing on summer activities is essential for remaining in the black for the rest of the year. The internet and mobile technology have dramatically changed the way people search for and make travel arrangements. This article will discuss recent research that gives business owners clues to reaching traveling customers in the digital age.

According to research from Hotels.com, millennials comprise 32 percent of US travelers, and are the fastest-growing age segment in travel. This techno-savvy group is changing the way hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues. For example, about one in four (25%) millennials who book hotels does so via a mobile device. The data cited also suggests that mobile marketing can be effective at getting last minute travellers. The study found that 70 percent of hotel bookings by millennials via a mobile device are made for same or next-day check-in.

Millennials are a good target audience because they spend more money when the travel. According to data cited by the MMGY Global, nearly 60 percent of millennials would rather spend money on experiences than on material goods. When put into numbers, the average millennial traveller intends to spend about $5,300 while travelling, whereas Gen Xers, say they’ll spend about $5,000.

A 2014 comScore study reported that 40 percent of the US travel audience only accessed digital travel content via mobile. An eMarketer report estimates that in 2015, total mobile travel research will rise nearly 20 percent to hit 72.8 million, or 54.6 percent of those who research travel digitally. That percentage is estimated to reach about 71 percent by 2018.

Hotels should strive to make their mobile and app experience as easy to use and functional as their desktop sites. Recently, eDigital Research ranked the apps and mobile sites of the most popular traveling sites. According to their research, Holiday Inn’s recently revamped app is a good example of what consumers want. The app got a top score of 81.6 percent on the rankings, which means the app will help in generating multichannel sales. Other notable sites for good multi-channel sales were Bookings.com and Hotels.com.

“As mobile continues to grow in popularity, there will soon come a time when the mobile customer experience will overtake traditional desktop sites,” said Steve Brockway, the Director of Research at eDigital Research. “However, when that day does come (and it could come as soon as this year) digital customer experiences across varying brands will differ only very slightly – we’re already seeing minimal differences between top performing brands. Instead, to make experiences really stand out from the competition, brands need to be investing in their service and customer support. With more consumers heading online to book and browse, on and offline support will become the foundation for a fantastic customer experience”.

A final thing to keep in mind is that social media is extremely important to travellers and business owners can use that to their advantage. One way to do this is by handling customer service issues on social media platforms. People share their experiences from travel with their friends and family via social media. If a business notices that a guest has mentioned them in a negative post, they should proactively try to solve the problem, even if the guest didn’t tell the business directly. For more advice on using social media to address customer service issues, read this article on the subject.

Now is the time for businesses to improve their mobile sites and apps so they put their best foot forward. The days of travel agents and people driving to random hotels to find a vacancy are coming to a close. Using technology to help travelers will help businesses increase their revenue during the vacation season.

To learn more on how mobile marketing and the internet are changing travel, read this article with more stats on hotel marketing.